residence permit!

I'm not even going to mention the trauma of watching the game Saturday night....

but since last email, even more has gone wrong! What else, you ask?

Well, the ants have resurfaced, and there's a leak in our bathroom. And our car is still not fixed, and I needed it today. I had to go to the immigration office today to pick up my residence permit, so I can legally be in Hungary -- the visa I got when I came home last year expired last week!

A number of things went wrong with this -- my usual translator, a Hungarian secretary named Ildiko, is in China right now! So we had to arrange for someone else to go, and it had to be today. We finally found someone, and planned to take public transportation there. This would have been great, except today, of all days, there was a strike. No buses, metro, trains, or trams were working in all of Budapest. Hmmmmm...

I had to borrow a car -- thank you, Sara! -- just to get there. And I'm kind of nervous about driving in the city, since I'm not especially confident driving stick. I halfway hoped I could pass the driving off to Julianna, my translator today -- but she told me she has never learned to drive! So I had no choice.

Well, as a result of the strike, everyone was driving today. That meant for about 30 minutes, I never got the car out of second gear. It was constantly stop and go -- which is awful at any time, but especially in a stick shift.

BUT we made it there, and Julianna twice told me I was a good driver -- haha! fooled her! :) and then I received my permit -- good for the next five years.

This is a huge relief, because many people only receive one year and must constantly be reapplying. If mine had only been for a year, I would have had to go through the same process (and pay AGAIN) next April. But for some reason, and for the same amount of money, I got the maximum permit -- so I can live in, or visit, Hungary as often as I like until 2013.

So yay! not everything has been bad news! :)